Aurora man guilty of bank fraud

A federal jury has convicted two businessmen – including one from Aurora - on multiple bank fraud charges related to falsifying loan documents to postpone foreclosure on a parcel of land in Aurora worth nearly $2 million.

After an eight-day trial in federal court in Chicago, a jury returned verdicts finding Kevin LeBeau, 55, of Aurora, guilty of three counts of bank fraud and four counts of making false statements to a federally insured bank; and finding Brian Bodie, 66, of Chicago, guilty on three counts of bank fraud and three counts of making false statements to a federally insured bank.

The maximum sentence for each count is 30 years in prison, and U.S. District Judge Robert W. Gettlemen has not yet scheduled sentencing hearings, according to a news release from the U.S. Attorney's Office of the Northern District of Illinois.

Joel R. Levin, acting U.S. attorney for the district, and Michael J. Anderson, special agent in charge of the Chicago office of the FBI, announced the convictions in a news release.

LeBeau and Bodie orchestrated a fraud scheme involving a $1.9 million loan from Amcore Bank, which in 2004 mortgaged a 10.4-acre property to the pair after they executed a full personal guarantee for the loan, according to the news release.

The property is at 5 S. 947 Deerpath Road on Aurora's West Side, according to court documents.

By fall 2005, the men had failed to make required loan payments, and foreclosure loomed. The men, in an effort to put off foreclosure, submitted fraudulent and fabricated information about the progress of their efforts to develop the property, according to the news release.

Eventually, though, the property foreclosed, and was sold in 2010 at a loss to the bank and several investors who had pledged their own money for the project, according to the news release.

While LeBeau and Bodie told individual investors their money would be used to develop a mixed-use development on the property, the investors became victims of financial crime. The fraud resulted in one couple losing $450,000 and an elderly couple losing $300,000, with the men using some of the elderly couple's money for business expenses and to make bank payments, according to the news release.

Both defendants were born in the Aurora area and LeBeau is a lifelong Aurora resident, Collins said.

The men had not been business partners before but became involved in the development project in 2004, planning to build as many as 260 condominium units on the property, which at one point housed a health club run by LeBeau's uncle, Collins said. Then the economy turned, ruining their dreams, he said. While there were also issues regarding density and nearby wetlands, the men thought those could have been resolved by working with the city, Collins said.

"They firmly believed they were going to make it work, or at least be able to sell the property for a developer who would put the structures up," Collins said.